2007 OS Literature and Our PostSecular Condition
Course Description
Oberseminar / Kolloquium Kirchhofer (mit Simons): Literature and our (Post)Secular Condition, Mi 18-20
Our point of departure will be the sudden and massive critical interest which the topic of religion has found lately. Is religion really about to “replace the triumvirate of race, class and gender as the center of intellectual energy in the academy” as Stanley Fish has predicted? Will the ‘postmodern condition’ give way to a ‘postsecular condition’? And what might be the consequences for the secular self-conception of Western societies and for the role which literature has had in this self-conception? Our seminar offers an opportunity to address these questions both in a current and a historical perspective. We will look at the recent theoretical attention which the religious and the secular have received (the choice ranges from Foucault, Derrida or Habermas to ethnologists like Talal Asad), but we propose also to explore historical perspectives that extend between Jonathan Swift’s A Tale of a Tub (1704) and Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses (1988). Our precise programme will be agreed on at the beginning of the semester. This course is open to students who have an interest in current issues in criticism and theory. It may also be used in order to prepare one topic for an oral exam. Please note: enrolment is not via Stud.IP. Please register in person.
